Taken By the Night
Part Eight

Part VIII “Diary of Aurelia”
Year 180 A.C. Marcus Aurelius is the last emperor of the golden era of Rome, place: Tivoli “You are the chosen one, Aurelia!” Her Watcher had just presented himself to his new Slayer. The golden girl with hazel eyes felt childish and kept on with her chores. She was barely 15 years old, a devoted daughter of a senator for Rome, a good girl destined to service Athena. She deposited the oil lamp beneath the statue of the owl women and returned to her place among the virgins.

“You must not come in here…Athena would be very angry for your lack of presents…a man with no mind for tradition you are.” The petite girl covered her head with the linen of her veil and walked on…never turning her back on the old man that had spoken foolish words to her.

“Some men are beyond the rituals…seems they would not remember the past for their own sakes.” Aurelia nodded her in approval as her maid and companion walked closely behind her.

“It’s not him, Calpurnia. The man that follows me is another one. I am sure he has now swam the river of Hades, may Zeus keep his eyes safe…they were haunting… like a wolf’s cry in the cold distant night, I cannot forget them for the sake of my soul.” Aurelia’s father had sent the man to be killed the same evening he had set eyes on his daughter. He had been a Slave, a handsome one, tall, dark and strong with muscular arms and legs and deep soulful chocolate eyes. He belonged to the Caesar—but he was still a slave. Not good for his grandiose daughter…destined for much better than that.

“You have feelings for the slave. I can see it so clearly…like a dawn on the shores. You cannot forget his hands.” The slave with the face of an angel had been kind enough to clean her feet as she entered the chambers of the emperor with her father. She had loved him then and there…and he had loved her back.

“He disappeared after the moon change… now is all in the fate of the gods. Come pray with me, Calpurnia.” Aurelia suddenly remembered the cold hands of the man, the pale skin and the dark silky hair. He was magnificent, worthy of a statue. She thought he should have been a soldier, not a slave. He looked dangerous and cunning…like a wild animal she thought…and he was only there at night, she knew, because she had sought him out…several times, to find only his sandals and tunic, but never him.

“Yes, my child. Let us pray, for the health of Marcus Aurelius, our Caesar.” Aurelia sat in the terrace, just beside the fountain and the folly. Her house was nearly a palace and she was an only child. As the sun fell down she wondered about the night. She felt compelled to search it, to love it as a child seeks her mothers breast.

LA, California, 1999 A.C. (6 months after lawyers at best)

“I must speak to you. My name is Whistler…I came to give you this.”

This skinny, stinky demon with no style whatsoever just tried to touch me. Should I kill him, Mate?

“I’m curious, Buff. Let him give you the book.” What harm could it be in a book, lover?

“Leave it on the ground.” Buffy and Angelus were strolling in the wee hours of the night after their midnight snack. Her blonde hair was straight and loose, flowing in the wind. She was dressed in navy blue and black. Her breasts were lifted by a corset and she was wearing leather boots that made her 3 inches taller, almost as tall as her mate’s shoulder. She looked almost threatening to the demon.

“As you wish…I was also supposed to tell you a story.” Buffy made a grimace as he bowed and almost tripped on the sight of her breasts.

“Some other time perhaps.” She noticed the vein pumping incessantly on his neck and felt suddenly very hungry. She had a newborn appetite, healthy and voracious.

“You are just like her…like the picture of Aurelia.” Whistler noticed the gesture of Buffy’s face. She was almost salivating and grazing a very evident tongue across her elongated fangs.

“Leave.”

One word had never commanded so much power. Angelus was the Highest Master around in the US, and many other places. So powerful only a fool would dare to even look him in the eye. Buffy, his watch dog, had already saved him once from a group of warlocks and demons that wanted to kill him in her amidst. Now they knew that was impossible, Angelus was the head of Wolfram and Heart, and the most powerful vampire in the world, if not in history.

“I…yes.” Whistler stuttered and moved slowly without losing his cool approach as Angelus came towards him with a more than menacing look on his face.

Suddenly a portal opened behind Whistler and he was swallowed again. The Powers that Be had only sent him to deliver a message, not to become a pet in the O’Quinns Parlor of Pain. Angelus had hundreds of slaves and minions, but he was always very busy with his Queen, Buffy the Master’s Slayer, and Red a.k.a. Willow, and Drusilla too, among the multitude that formed his side on the war of good versus evil.

“I was looking for a new specimen to burn…bummer, I guess will keep looking.” Let’s call Wolfram and Heart, They have a good stock of pets. Right, mister president?

“I think I am going to invite Red for a toss in the hay… you’ll be tossing and I’ll be the hay.” Buffy laughed wickedly as she envisioned Willow tied to the bed and the master sucking on her neck. I would be giving you a blow-job and you would be fondling me with the leather vibrator.

“Can’t hardly wait, lover.”

Buffy was now fully tamed and broken in the rougher side of sex. She had been the master and the slave, the rapist and the raped. She had been the slayer and the bait.

“But I am angry now, Buffy. I must fight.” They separated slowly without losing the thunderous atmosphere between them.

She had the first punch, a frontal kick to the chest. A human would have been killed by the sheer force of the blow.

Angelus didn’t even move an inch. Do better, Buffy. I yearn for the kill.

Buffy launched for his throat and flew through the sky towards him for a good yard before landing on top of him as he fell on his back, on top of his rear. The sheer force of it was so much it made the ground ripple and crumble beneath them on the aftershock of her assault.

Good girl, I’d be dust if I were a fledgling. Luckily for you it’s my turn to punch.

He grabbed her by the nape as he stood up. He then placed a hand in the small of her back and elevated her above his head as a ritual sacrifice and then… threw her into a tombstone several feet away. The marble broke, but she didn’t.

She roused after a few seconds with a distinctive pain in the lower back and responded with a punch to the face. Her fist closed tightly, swung with killer might, and made a bruise on the master’s pale cheek skin.

Rough you wanted then?

Angelus pulled the left arm of his mate behind her and tried to break it. She managed to come out of his embrace by ducking, kicking him in the balls, and knocking her head against his jaw. She almost broke her skull as she roused out of it again simultaneously.

He broke her nose with his elbow for the ache in his balls.

Buffy got mad and used both her legs as tweezers around his head and tried to break his neck. To the curious eye this looked like a fight to death, but to them it was foreplay.

She almost succeeded and punched his chest with closed fists when he fell to the ground beneath her.

He lost patience and grabbed both her wrists. He turned her down and straddled her, sinking his teeth into her right breast. She cried out in pleasure and pain and he sucked harder and harder until he was satisfied of it.

The dungeon awaits you still, lover. You know it’s time again, but this once let’s molest another slayer, shall we?

Faith disliked Buffy. Faith craved Angelus. Faith made Buffy feel jealous. Faith was the yang to Buffy’s ying. Faith was tasty and nasty. Faith tried to kill Buffy and was now about to be captured by the Scourge. Buffy wanted her beneath her and Angelus was only happy to provide it for his mate.

Sounds like a plan, Master.

I have games to play with that brunette.

Faith was a loose cannon. Faith was above all things the current slayer and a cock tease. Faith was a slut …and the Master wanted her flesh, badly.

RRR, RRR, RRR. I want to kill her, Angelus! I warn you—I want to stop her heart!

She is under our nails, baby.

He wanted to soothe her. She was his mate. Faith was his current wimp, but until he raped her, he wouldn’t be happy again.

Why do you want to rape her?

It wasn’t rhetorical. Angelus had all a vampire could ask in Buffy. Faith could only be a diversion to him.

She has threatened us, baby. We have let her live more than she deserved. She betrayed us. She must pay for her disobedience…with blood.

Fine then. Tomorrow night we’ll take her, but now, lets go have sex. Should I invite, Red?

We fancying Red now, right, darling? You naughty slayer. You want to have Faith outnumbered. You are so smart. Just for that I’m going to give it to you in the ass tonight, smart ass.

Buffy laughed bitterly at his comment and paused to regard the book she had been given that night.

It was a diary. The Diary of Aurelia it said.

“I am, I am, I am her,
the daughter of the wolf and the huntress,
the mother of pain,
I live at night,
I love at night,
I was the first.
The Slayer and the Slayed,
Today is the first day of the order of Aurelius, the man with the face like an Angel changed me to become his mate. We drank each others blood.
And now I am the first.
They say a new dynasty has begun,
They say my blood will survive for ages,
And my legends will not be forgotten,
They say I am her,
The immortal one,
The goddess made flesh.
But I am not.
Someday I will die too
My ash will cover the ground
My mate’s tears will cover the ground red
My diary would be all that’s left.
I lived
And died
And saw more moons than sand on the shore
I counted five thousand hundred
But I was no good for numbers, the could have been more
For surely my mate said -a century of gold, was ours and yours-
In the end a new baby was there to take a hand
And another, and millions after them
I made a tree to remember them
Some are here already
Some will come with a new day
But in the end
We will be all that’s left
Aurelia’s fruit will be the last
And the first.”

Beneath the poem was a list, a family tree that started with Aurelia and Proximus, and ended with her. Buffy was the last name on that list. Aurelia, Proximus, the master, Darla, Angelus and her, Drusilla, Willow and Spike were on the line prior to the Slayer’s, but she was alone in the end. Surely Angelus had stopped making minions after her.

All thoughts suddenly clicked and she realized they were the only ones with that burden, Aurelia and her. The only slayers to ever love a vampire.

Now Buffy was astonished. The line of the powerful Aurelius came from another slayer that bonded with a vampire.

“It’s beyond my imagination.” Beyond mine too. Buffy realized the story only began with the poem, and she decided she wouldn’t read any further. The end sounded very much like ‘the end of the world’ to her, and she wanted to be a ostrich and just bury her head in the sand.

+++

Los Angeles, California
Dolce & Gabbana Store
5:30 pm (told from Buffy’s point of view) “Buffy!”

I whirled around at the sound of my old name, but what was I supposed to do? Besides killing her. She is Cordelia Chase, actress, mildly famous, noveau rich, annoying bitch, and fashion expert. So killing her would not be so good, and I am not even hungry to begin with.

“I saw you in the Maroon5 music video. I thought you looked well.” I was sincere about that. She had been flaunting her breast to the camera and waving her lustrous curls to Adam Levine.

“Thank you! You on the other hand look incredible. How did you get your hair that color? It’s very peculiar and you lost like 20 pounds. The Atkins diet I bet? I’m on it too. Care to go for a moccachino?”

I laughed inwards, I didn’t drink that, but I would certainly sip her. Maybe I should favor this acquaintance. She could be useful.

“It’s Frederich Fekai. He does my hair. I have things to do later, but if you want we could meet in my home for supper—say eight-ish? We have got plenty of gossip to discuss.” Say yes and you’ll be the second course of my dinner and we’ll discuss the possibility of me having a Remfield to do my shopping.

“Of course! So tell me were you going to buy something here, or were you just browsing?” Testing me already, Cordy? For your information I have an account here and they give me the stuff for free.

“I liked the cobra boots, and the leopard set of coats…but it’s rather pricey, besides it would look better in you.” Take that ball, I can get it with a wave of my hair, but can you do the same?

“I was actually looking for a job. I do modeling for their catalog sometimes.”

Sometimes …like never?

“Dorian, I would like to see the catalog please?” Lets see you sweat, Cordy.

“Absolutely, madam. Can I get you anything else?” A toddler would be nice.

“I did it months ago, not last month. I wouldn’t be in that one, maybe next month?”

If dreams were all to become a reality.

“Don’t worry. There’s something there I want to order.” A dress, or should say the dress, at the rather small fee of 50,000 dollars I get a dress made for me. The only one of it that was manufactured, by the specific request of Liam O’Quinn, but you know him as Angelus The Scourge of Europe. Don’t you know my mate, Cordy? He knows you.

“We have your dress in the store, my lady. Would you like to try it on?” Once again, Dorian, the title died like a hundred years ago. Lord Liam is not a lord anymore. He is just a master!

“Send it home …and thank you for the all the trouble.” That meant send it now.

“Not a problem, Mistress Angelus. I’ll also send the boots and the set of coats ye were observing earlier…for ye to try them on, complementary on the house, we wait eagerly for yer next visit.” You mean my next purchase…don’t ye luv the accent, Cordy? It’s Scottish.

“Did I just hear him calling you mistress Angelus or what? Well, aren’t you a lucky blonde bitch. I thought you two had split up. Come to think of it, why did you drop high school even?”

You can think?! I hadn’t noticed and thank you for the insult, Cordelia. I didn’t drop out, I got married—so to speak—and I have already finished it. I even go to college now, I’m taking classes in UCLA, pre-law, imagine that.

“I didn’t. I moved to LA with my dad, and about Angelus, we are married.” A million dollars on the priceless look of envy in your face.

“Wasn’t he a vampire?”

Well duh! So am I!

“We prefer the term ‘creatures of the night’…if you would excuse me I have plenty to do. I’ll send the limousine to pick you up at the Regents Beverly Wiltshire at 7:45. Be ready. Until then, goodbye.” And stop ogling my Prada handbag. It’s disgusting seeing you slobber around it.

“Sure. I’ll dress casual.”

And let my Manolo Blanik shoes also out of your pool of drool please.

“Make it formal. Angelus is very…demanding on properness and etiquette.” ’Specially on his food!

“Of course! It was great meeting you again.”

Sure, it was good to have dinner brought to me for once.

+++

Wolfram & Hart
Presidential Office
5:30 pm
note: “sassan” means “Englishman” in Irish Gaelic and to my web goddess request I made Buffy’s thoughts realistic. She watches the Discovery health channel and does very un-vampire like giggles to puppies and babies. J thank you, Claudia! I hope you like Angelus reasons as well!

“I certainly wasn’t expecting your visit,” said Angelus as he watched Rupert Giles entering his office.

“I know you weren’t, but I have the activity report on the Hellmouth and there is something that I thought I should rather discuss with you personally.” Giles sat down in front of his boss, even if reluctantly, he had decided that if he wanted his wife and unborn child to live he had to ask for protection in the only places high enough to guaranty it…namely Angelus.

“Good. How is your lady Janna? Well I expect. She is what?… seven months now, or is it eight?”

Giles swallowed hard and managed not to sound like the fear gripping him every time Angelus said his wife’s name or condition.

“Eight, but she is carrying it very well. The reason I came here was another prophesy involving Buffy. Why did you offer her to the First before converting her?” Rupert’s mouth trembled in the last word as Angelus settled more comfortably into his leather chair.

“I knew you’d come to do this sooner or later, and I certainly admire your courage—to answer your question…” Angelus paused to sever the link between Buffy and himself momentarily. “I did it because she was meant to die. I could have never turned her into an immortal, so I traded something for it.”

To say that Giles was dumfounded was an understatement. He knew there were other motivations, but this was a rare one…love. Could the Scourge truly have loved Buffy so much as to never want her to die? Or was it just selfishness?

“What did you give in return for Buffy’s immortality?” The silence grew heavy with anticipation of the answer.

“My own soul”

“What?! But how?!” Giles raised his voice in astonishment, he had never thought of that

. “The day she was born TPTB, the Powers that Be, told me I was destined to kill her one day whether on my own or for a chain reaction of my acts. I struggled against it—in pain as I was with the grief the curse had placed upon me—and finally decided to make a bargain with the First—who is also a part of the powers that be, like the ying yang principle—and they took my offer.” But he hadn’t offered his soul to save her. He just meant he wanted the pain gone, and he would have done anything if it meant the agony would have ended right away.

“My god.” Rupert’s mouth was hanging agape and his pulse was very fast.

“I didn’t know then that I would l—care so much for her, or the way she was meant to take the pain away. I only knew the pain was meant to come to an end.” He had meant to say he had fallen in love with her.

“Why did they want your soul for?”

Angelus rubbed his temple remembering the reason but deciding not to share it all right away.

“I’m a walking apocalypse, Rupert. The vampire with a soul, always in some obscure prophecy about the end of the world—did you know there are 777 references to me in the codex? Imagine that number in terms of prophecies—so I decided to part with the soul tale of it and be just the vampire. And the PTB were very happy—did you know they don’t want the world to end? It’s their amusing ride. They come around, take a look, have a laugh and go home happy with our performance—those bastards.”

Giles wondered how Angelus came to know so much about creatures so far from his realm. “And what happens now?” Rupert decided not to probe the vampire too deeply, because he was afraid of what he would have found there.

“I break the first prophecy…because I cannot do the one thing every other prophecy said I had to do to live eternally.” His immortality wasn’t there anymore. He was meant now to die…to die a human death for that matter, though he sometimes wondered how that could happen. He could never be human again.

“I don’t understand. What was it you could not do?” Giles wasn’t prepared for his answer at all.

“I couldn’t avoid…falling in love with her…” Angelus had to open the link to his mate again. A flood of laughs coming to him as he heard about Cordelia’s visiting the O’Quinns Parlor. “You must go now. I have too many things to do. Leave the report with my secretary.” He hadn’t taken even a glimpse to it.

“What about the next apocalypse? It’s coming to Sunnydale in a matter of weeks.” Angelus rose from his seat and opened the door so Giles could leave the room.

“I couldn’t care less. Now my sassan, I must warn you…Buffy doesn’t like it when you come. Says it give her the willies. So don’t come here anymore…or your wife might suffer for your recklessness. Be gone now.”

Rupert paused in front of the master before finally leaving. “Thank you…for your kindness.”

“Giles…good luck with the Initiative. They are kinda powerful in ammo, or so says Buffy.” A light help, but a shadow of hope at least. Buffy would come every once in a while to check on her mother, without her knowledge, and also see to some minor evils at the same time, the Initiative among them.

“Godspeed to you and your mistress, master Angelus,” said Rupert Giles as he left with the satisfaction of knowing that Buffy, Janna, and his unborn son were safe.

+++

W&H
5:45 pm
(Again from Buffy’s point of view)

“Hello, Dear.”

Upon entering my mate’s office the smell of Giles assaulted me. I realized he had been there very shortly ago and my senses screamed for the possible danger. Was it Janna? Xander? Or even my mother? Was something wrong with them? I couldn’t help but worry immediately.

“Hi, Dear. So why was Giles here?” Aurelia’s first revelation was still in my head.

They left. They all left. My family, my friends, my servants, even my pets. And I was left alone. With nothing else but my own feelings, and even those had to be ridden, people—demons that is—eyed me with distress as I acted human and they meant to kill me very often. I could see it in their eyes, the blood thirst for the nectar of my veins,…and the one of those I still cared for. They used them against me, even Proximus—who was the only one I cared for—manipulated me, and in the wisdom of pain I chose. It was a mask, a façade of insensibility that covered me from the rest of the vampires, cold and motionless as a statue, death, that was what sheltered me in drapes, the death of my emotions and feelings and the birth of my numbness…slowly spreading itself into my core, until it too was so cold that ice was warm to it.

“He was giving me a report on the Hellmouth activity. He said his wife and everybody else were well…you look hungry.” I know Angelus is no Proximus, but still…sometimes I cannot help to wonder, Why he is so different in public, in private he is tender and calm, he explains things to me, he reasons with me when another sire would go for the lash, he is patient and he never loses his nerve when I act foolishly…but in public he is a mercenary, the worst of the worst, the killer and the causer of all mayhem.

“I’ll ask Willow to go hunting with me.” Willow, she is always in the verge of falling into mayhem. She likes the dark too much. Oz certainly keeps her at bay, but she is but a shadow of the innocent girl I knew…so pure and sweet. Now she is as tainted…as I am.

“I heard you invited Cordelia to have supper, or should I say to be supper?” Funny dude my mate. I really don’t mean to kill her. She has better uses to me as an ally rather than a meal.

“I bumped into her, she looks homeless…and roleless.” I hate pity, and I also despise compassion, since Cordelia is nothing but a starving actress of the bunch. I should now take them all to my home because of the favor I showed one of them!

“I don’t approve of that kind of meal…she is rather cold to my taste, you know?” Suddenly I realize he is standing there with his hands in his pockets, his eyes searching the room for his car keys. Sometimes I forget he is so handsome, tall, lean and dark. An epitome of female fantasies, the king of my fantasies, my charming, armored, black-clothed prince.

“I know your taste, Sire.” I talk huskily as he gives me that smirk that makes my knees bent and my belly quiver. He is a chocolate sin and I desperately want to dip my face into him.

“What’s stopping you?”

Sometimes I forget he hears my thoughts, and I also wonder how he stands my secret mushiness. Yes! I am mushy and sentimental! I watch * A Baby Story * on the Discovery Health channel and sometimes I cry. I laugh at puppies and babies. I love moonlight and her antics. I hate the sound of clashing metal and the thought of wars makes my skin crawl. I hate guns. I miss my mother and sometimes I wish I could have a baby…but I cannot say this to anybody, because they would laugh at me. They would torture me with their knowledge of my weakness. They would rip up the little happiness I have harbored in the core of my being and bury me heart first into their darkness.

“Nothing. I am just waiting for the mug I ordered.” Yes, I drink bagged blood! I like the hunt, because It makes me horny, but I don’t like the kill. Because I have to prove to others how much of a bloodthirsty monster I can be, when I am really—pardon the joke on lambs—just a lamb in a vampire’s clothes.

“Willow was accepted in the Magic Union. She is officially a witch now. Magic wand, pointy hat, long tunic, moll and all. Funny don’t you think, love?”

Willow, one mighty redhead she is, all feisty and full of spirit. I take inspiration from her sometimes. I love her. I can’t explain in words the way I do it exactly but I know she is my weakness in this place, and people know it. She is favored, she has everything she wants, including a werewolf husband and money to buy a small country. Willow, the only thread that links me to my past.

“Good for her, dear. Now, lets go have a bath. I mean to try the new bath salts Drusilla sent us from Turkey.” He smiles and takes my hand and laces it with his because he knows I mean to make love with him in the tub. In my head he shows me the way I mold to his body, and how much he likes it when I am on top and my hair covers his face.

“Have I mentioned your eyes sparkle when you wear green. It really becomes you, Love.” He slips one of the straps of my top and sucks lovingly into the skin. I moan at his attentions. While his other hand travels from my nape to the small of my back, in a gesture both sweet and possessive, he says mine without words. I know he has an erection and I also know he is hungry…because he is always hungry for me. He feeds only from me and that is a fountain of my inner-most pleasure.

He needs me, like a child needs a mother.

“Maybe I should go green with envy.” But who could I envy? I have it all and as he caresses my shoulders I know that I hold something priceless. I hold him…and he holds me in return.

“SHUSH, dear. It’s all very crowded in your lovely blonde hair…and I mean to take it all away.”

And he does, whenever he is inside of me my thoughts stop wandering and settle to the task of making love to one’s mate…the best task of all I’d say.

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